Tired cells mean ageing bodies

FOR the first time, researchers have linked the ageing of our bodies with the tendency of cells eventually to stop dividing - a phenomenon known as senescence. Scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in California have shown that an enzyme produced only in senescent cells accumulates in ageing skin. Their discovery may help researchers screen for drugs to revive ageing tissue or inhibit cancers.

Cells growing in a laboratory culture are living on borrowed time. After a limited number of divisions they become senescent, presumably because they switch on genes that prevent them from dividing any further. Biologists have long assumed that senescence also occurs in the body, contributing to ageing and providing a means of preventing the uncontrolled cell division that causes cancer. But proving this has been impossible, because they did not have a test that could detect senescent cells in the body

Judith Campisi and her colleagues ...

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